t\OT\TOt  7, 


Reprinted  from  the  Technology  Review,  Vol.  III.,  No.  4 


BOSTON 

George  H.  Ellis,  Printer,  272  Congress  Street 


1901 


UNIVERSITY  Or 
ILLINOIS  UBRAKJ 

fci  URBANA-CHAM-  AI-aH 

ftp;  ..uuwuj 


THE  PROFESSION  OF  TEACHING 


One  of  the  most  painful  things  to  the  student  of  educa- 
tion is  the  wide  difference  between  the  high  results  of  public 
school  teaching  which  he  believes  to  be  practicable  and  the 
actual  achievements  of  the  usual  public  school.  Theoreti- 
cally, free  public  education  should  be  the  supreme  force  in 
every  community  : practically,  it  is  not.  Theoretically,  the 
extension  of  such  education  should  be  followed  by  a higher 
political  morality  and  a deeper  sense  of  social  responsibility  : 
practically,  it  is  not.  Theoretically,  the  teacher  — spiritual 
or  temporal  — - should  be  honored  above  all  other  men  : 
practically, she  is  not.  Who  is  to  blame?  In  part,  the 
parent,  for  neglecting  to  take  active  interest  in  the  work  and 
standing  of  public  schools  ; in  part,  the  community,  for  giv- 
ing grudgingly  toward  education  and  refusing  due  support 
and  honor  to  those  who  teach  ; but,  most  of  all,  the  teachers 
themselves  and  the  colleges  of  arts  and  sciences,  for  failing 
to  regard  teaching  as  the  most  important  and  honorable  of 
all  professions. 

It  is,  indeed,  the  exceptional  teacher  — outside  the  facul- 
ties of  colleges  — who  seriously  looks  upon  himself  as  a 
professional  man.  The  ordinary  schoolmaster  has  little  of 
the  personal  weight,  of  the  sense  of  professional  responsi- 
bility, of  what  may  be  called  the  corporate  self-respect  of 
the  lawyer,  the  physician,  or  the  engineer.  The  traditions 
of  the  teaching  guild  do  not  yet  demand  a wide  education, 
a slow  and  laborious  preparation,  a careful  and  humble 
apprenticeship,  such  as  are  required  for  entrance  into  the 
really  learned  professions.  A broad  education  and  the  poise 
of  mind  which  follows  it  are  the  vital  needs  of  a great 


pf.OW5 


4 


majority  of  the  public  school  teachers  of  to-day.  They  are 
ceaselessly  complaining  of  a condition  of  things  which  is 
indeed  grievous,  but  which  is  largely  of  their  own  creation. 
They  demand  high  place  without  qualifying  themselves  to 
hold  high  place  ; they  rebel  at  a not  uncommon  attitude  of 
contempt  or  of  contemptuous  toleration  on  the  part  of  the 
public,  but  do  not  purge  themselves  of  the  elements  which 
excite  that  contempt ; they  accuse  the  parents  and  the 
public  of  indifference  toward  their  work,  but  do  little  to 
render  that  work  of  such  quality  as  to  forbid  indifference. 

There  is  no  reason  — except  in  negligent  custom,  in  which 
the  majority  of  teachers  and  practically  all  of  the  colleges 
acquiesce  — why  the  man  or  woman  who  has  charge  of  the 
mental  growth  of  the  child  should  be  satisfied  with  a train- 
ing less  thorough  than  that  of  the  physician  who  cares  for 
his  body,  the  lawyer  who  manages  his  property,  or  the 
clergyman  who  ministers  to  his  soul.  It  is  idle  to  claim, 
as  is  sometimes  done,  that  there  is  no  profession  for  the 
teacher  to  study,  that  the  art  of  teaching  comes  by  nature, 
and  that,  if  there  be  a sort  of  science  of  education,  it  will 
filter  out  from  the  errors  and  successes  of  experience. 
The  body  of  the  law  is  but  a record  of  human  experiments 
and  mistakes  in  social  order.  Medicine  itself  is  but  the 
crystallized  result  — always  recrystallizing  — of  centuries  of 
empiricism,  often  disastrous,  upon  the  human  constitution. 
Engineering,  founded  though  it  be  upon  a science  so  exact 
as  mathematics,  is  the  net  result  of  an  infinite  number  of 
blundering  attempts  to  solve  the  problems  of  matter  and 
of  motion.  But  the  fact  that  these  professions  and  the 
sciences  upon  which  they  rest  are  always  undergoing  change, 
that  often  the  accepted  truth  of  to-day  is  the  proved  fallacy 
of  to-morrow,  does  not  lessen  their  dignity,  does  not  dis- 
courage their  followers  from  long  years  of  preparation  for 


5 


them,  does  not  justify  the  men  of  those  professions  in  work- 
ing by  rule-of-thumb  methods  and  haphazard  guesses  when 
it  is  possible,  through  study,  experimentation,  and  mutual 
enlightenment,  to  work  by  known  laws,  in  orderly  sequence, 
toward  well-defined  ends.  There  is  abundant  foundation 
for  a science  and  art  of  education  as  elaborate  and  dignified 
as  that  of  medicine  ; but  the  science  and  art  will  not  develop 
so  long  as  it  is  regarded  as  possible  and  natural  to  admit 
half-taught  girls  and  youths,  or  those  who  follow  teaching 
only  as  a temporary  means  of  livelihood,  to  full  fellowship 
with  thoroughly  educated,  professional  teachers.  Neither 
will  this  science  and  this  art  emerge  into  professional  dignity 
until  the  colleges  and  the  professional  schools  define  them, 
co-ordinate  the  subjects  of  study  upon  which  they  are  based, 
and  place  the  cc  Graduate  in  Education  ” upon  the  high 
plane  of  the  Doctor  of  Medicine  and  the  Bachelor  of 
Law. 

Were  there,  however,  no  well-defined  science  and  art  of 
education,  abundant  reason  would  still  remain  why  the 
public  school-teacher,  quite  as  much  as  the  college  pro- 
fessor, should  be  soundly  and  broadly  trained  in  a range 
of  study  and  thought  far  beyond  the  topics  that  he  teaches. 
For  it  is  the  personality  of  the  man,  the  breadth  of  his 
grasp  of  life,  and  the  atmosphere  which  he  creates  and 
maintains  in  his  school-room  that,  more  than  anything  else, 
secure  his  success  in  teaching  and  really  develop  his  pupils. 
These  qualities  can  be  secured,  in  general,  only  by  a sound 
and  extensive  education. 

No  teacher  has  a right  to  lament  the  blindness  of  the 
public  toward  the  value  of  his  work  who  has  not  fitted 
himself  in  the  highest  measure  really  to  be  an  educator. 
No  body  of  teachers  may  honestly  cc  resolve  ” for  greater 
recognition  and  consideration  from  others  unless  they  are 


6 


themselves  doing  yeoman  work  toward  raising  the  stand- 
ards of  preparation  and  attainment  within  their  own  profes- 
sion. So  long  as  low  ideals  of  school  work,  routine  in- 
struction, and  aimless  methods  — to  say  nothing  of  political 
interference  — are  tolerated  by  the  teachers  themselves,  the 
schools  and  those  who  conduct  them  will  fail  of  due  honor 
and  support,  will  fall  far  short  of  their  possible  efficiency, 
and  will  not  take  their  rightful  place  as  the  supreme  uplift- 
ing force  of  every  democratic  community. 

If  it  be  deemed  necessary  that  the  professions  of  law  and 
medicine  should  be  governed  by  the  strictest  rules,  should 
frame  elaborate  codes  of  ethics,  should  have  only  the 
highest  and  purest  aims,  purging  themselves  of  all  shysters, 
jerry-builders,  and  quacks,  how  infinitely  more  impor- 
tant that  this  profession  of  teaching,  the  work  of  which  is 
greater,  higher,  nobler  than  any  of  those  others,  should 
be  regarded,  too,  as  a sacred  guild  into  which  no  traffickers 
or  triflers  be  allowed  to  come,  concerning  whose  work  none 
but  him  who  knows  should  have  anything  to  say,  whose  sole 
aim  should  be  to  make  of  every  child  of  the  millions  under 
its  care  the  very  most  that  can  be  made. 

Certain  stock  arguments  are  always  brought  forward 
against  the  possibility  of  such  high  professional  standards. 
The  pitifully  poor  rewards,  the  uncertainty  of  tenure,  the 
often  anomalous  social  position  of  the  teacher, — all  these 
and  many  similar  disadvantages  are  advanced  as  reasons 
why  it  is  not  worth  while  to  attempt  to  raise  the  present 
standards  of  attainment.  The  hosts  of  glib  pretenders,  the 
arrogance  of  ignorant  school  committees,  a cheap  and  noisy 
commercialism,  are,  it  is  said,  insurmountable  obstacles  to 
the  creation  of  a generally  high,  fine  conception  of  teaching 
such  as  exists  among  a few  devoted,  really  educated  school- 
masters. A man  who  adopts  the  work  of  teaching  must 


7 


have,  we  are  told,  something  of  the  martyr  spirit ; for 
this  profession  has  in  it  an  element  of  self-sacrifice  which 
the  other  high  vocations  do  not  demand.  Truly,  the  work 
of  the  teacher  does  involve  much  sacrifice  of  self ; but  it 
meets  with  immediate  and  tangible  reward  in  the  uplifted 
lives  of  the  children  for  whom  the  sacrifice  is  made.  This 
is  a return  which  even  the  profession  of  the  clergy  rarely 
sees.  Moreover,  were  the  majority  of  those  who  teach 
broadly  educated  men  and  women,  were  there  an  esprit  de 
corps  among  them  such  as  is  found  in  every  other  profes- 
sion, the  petty  things  of  teaching,  which  now  so  often 
overshadow  the  great  things,  would  disappear  and  the 
rewards,  both  material  and  insubstantial,  would  be  vastly 
increased.  Rights  and  privileges  would  then  be  eagerly 
offered  where  now  they  are  clamored  for  in  vain. 

The  education  of  the  teacher  — whether  he  is  to  deal 
with  infants  or  with  collegians  — should  be  as  nearly  as 
possible  like  the  best  training  given  to  the  young  physi- 
cian. He  should  have,  in  the  first  place,  a general  educa- 
tion so  thorough  and  well  balanced  that  he  may  be  able  to 
deal  wisely,  as  the  physician  is  called  upon  to  deal,  with 
those  problems  of  character,  those  perversions  of  mind  and 
morals,  those  subtle  diseases  of  the  will  which  no  medicine 
and  no  surgeon’s  knife  can  reach.  Having  made  himself 
thus  a broad  man,  a proper  counsellor,  the  young  teacher 
must  next,  as  does  the  medical  student,  become  familiar 
with  the  technical  details  of  his  profession,  learn  what  is 
known  of  the  mental  growth  and  reactive  processes  of 
children,  study  the  laws  of  mental  health,  the  modes  of  its 
preservation,  the  methods  of  stimulating  mind  and  soul, 
the  effects,  good  and  bad,  of  association,  what  one  might 
call,  in  short,  the  pathology  of  childhood  and  adolescence. 
More  than  this,  he  should  make  himself,  as  far  as  can  be 


8 


done  theoretically,  master  of  the  details  of  the  school-room. 
Next,  just  as  the  medical  student  takes  his  course  in  the 
hospitals,  the  teacher  must  secure  actual,  hard  practice  in 
teaching,  with  pupils  of  many  sorts  and  conditions.  And, 
finally,  throughout  his  whole  professional  preparation  he 
must  make  a careful  analytical  and  philosophical  study  of 
the  history  of  education. 

What,  beyond  anatomy  and  physiology  and  laboratory 
work,  is  the  three  or  four  years’  course  of  the  medical 
student  except  a study,  under  guidance,  of  the  history  of 
medicine,  of  the  record  of  human  experience  concerning 
the  treatment  of  disease,  concerning  the  preservation  of 
health  ? When  a young  worker  in  the  hospitals  meets 
new  symptoms,  does  he  guess  at  the  disease  which  they  de- 
note, does  he  experiment  first  with  one  drug  and  then  with 
another  in  the  hope  that  he  may  hit  upon  something  suited 
to  the  emergency?  Absurd  supposition!  Yet  that  is 
what  teachers  are  doing  every  day.  A new  child  comes  to 
them  whose  moral  habit  and  intellectual  reaction  indicate 
disease,  or  lack  of  normal  susceptibility  to  education. 
Immediately  the  average  teacher  runs  through  his  small 
record  of  experience  to  ascertain  if  he  has  had  a pupil  of 
such  kind  before.  Finding  in  his  memory  a case  having 
somewhat  similar  features,  he  at  once  decides  that  the 
disease  is  due  to  the  same  conditions,  and  must  be  treated 
in  a similar  way.  If,  after  a few  weeks’  trial,  it  is  evident 
that  the  treatment  is  not  successful,  he  tries  another  moral 
and  intellectual  medicine,  or,  more  probably,  gives  the 
case  up  and  subjects  the  pupil  to  the  general  routine  dis- 
cipline and  mental  diet  which  have  been  prescribed,  in  a 
rule-of-thumb  fashion,  for  the  average,  normal  boy  or  girl. 
As  a result,  his  patient  dies, — not,  unfortunately,  in  the 
flesh,  but,  what  is  worse,  in  the  spirit ; and  one  more  vie- 


9 


tim  is  added  to  those  slain,  with  the  best  intentions,  by 
pedagogical  malpractice. 

When  the  physician,  on  the  contrary,  meets  obscure 
J symptoms,  he  goes  at  once  to  his  record  of  othpr  men’s 

experience,  to  his  authoritative  books,  his  latest  medical 

* journals,  his  older  colleagues.  With  their  help  he  makes 

diagnosis  of  the  disease  and  learns  the  manner  of  treatment 
approved  by  experience  and  analogy.  Or,  if  the  patient  is 
in  good  health  and  desires  to  perpetuate  that  happy  state, 
the  physician,  having  made  careful  study  of  the  diet  and 
exercise  suited  to  that  man’s  condition,  gives  him  proper 
advice.  In  the  manner  of  the  doctor  the  good  teacher 
should  regard  every  pupil  as  a patient, — either  as  a well 
one  to  be  kept  in  health  and  to  be  helped  to  grow  to  his 
fullest  stature ; or  as  a sick  one,  to  be  physicked  and 
nursed  back,  if  possible,  to  mental  and  moral  well-being. 
Every  well-trained  teacher  ought,  as  a matter  of  course, 
thus  to  individualize  and  treat  his  pupils ; his  professional 
instinct  should  impel  him  to  it ; he  should  find  delight,  as 
the  physician  does,  in  the  mere  act  of  healing,  in  the  power 

* and  influence  that  his  skill  has  given  him.  Such  a school- 

master, provided  he  have  the  teaching  enthusiasm, — just  as 
the  successful  medical  man  must  have  the  healing  fervor, — 
will  never  question  the  wisdom  of  his  choice  of  a profession  ; 
for  he  will  know  that  he  is  doing  the  best  and  most  endur- 
ing work  which  is  in  the  power  of  any  man  to  do. 

* A thorough  education,  then,  the  breadth  that  follows  it, 
and  a professional  consciousness  and  pride  are  what  the 
public  and  private  schools  must  demand  in  their  teachers  if 
those  schools  are  to  achieve  real  educational  development. 

>3  But  these  essential  things  the  majority  of  teachers  cannot 

* and  will  not  secure  until  the  colleges  and  universities  not 

only  freely,  but  enthusiastically  co-operate  with  them,  until 


IO 


it  is  made  not  simply  possible,  but  absolutely  necessary  for 
every  teacher  to  have  been  well  taught.  In  failing  to 
recognize  their  responsibility  in  this  matter,  the  higher 
institutions  have  done  the  community  and  themselves  un- 
counted injury : first,  by  fostering  the  all  too  prevalent 
notion  that  anybody  can  teach,  thereby  impairing  the 
dignity  and  standing  of  their  own  faculties ; secondly,  by 
leaving  the  preparatory  training  of  their  college  students 
practically  in  the  hands  of  amateurs,  thereby  vastly  dimin- 
ishing the  intellectual  and  moral  efficiency  of  those  young 
men  and  women  ; and,  thirdly,  by  permitting  many  boys 
and  girls  eminently  fitted  for  collegiate  work  to  be  turned 
aside  from  all  thought  of  going  to  college  by  the  dulness 
and  unintelligence  of  elementary  teachers,  one  of  whose 
chief  duties  should  have  been  to  discover  and  to  encourage 
those  youth  who  are  worth  a higher  education.  On 
grounds  of  pure  utility,  therefore,  to  say  nothing  of  their 
moral  obligations  as  leaders  of  thought  and  promoters  of 
social  good,  the  colleges  ought  to  make  it  their  chief  busi- 
ness to  prepare  men  and  women  for  this  work  of  teaching, 
— this  work  which  lies  at  the  fountain-head  of  their  own 
usefulness  as  well  as  of  the  welfare  of  society. 

Twenty-five  years  ago  it  would  have  been  impossible  for 
a college,  even  had  its  faculty  perceived  the  need,  to  offer  a 
distinctive  course  for  teachers  and  to  rank  the  graduates  of 
such  a course  with  those  in  medicine  and  law.  The  public, 
the  school  managers,  the  teachers  themselves,  with  rare  excep- 
tions, would  have  been  cold,  if  not  indeed  scornful,  toward 
such  an  exaltation  of  the  schoolmaster.  To-day,  however, 
conditions  are  vastly  changed,  and  increasing  numbers  of 
thoughtful  men  and  women  perceive  that  in  this  direction 
lies  at  least  a partial  solution  of  the  vexed  questions  of 
public  education.  That  “ psychological  moment,”  which 


institutions  as  well  as  governments  must  await,  has  arrived. 
What  would  have  seemed  preposterous  a quarter  of  a 
century  ago  is  to-day  not  only  natural,  but  inevitable ; and 
those  colleges  which  hesitate  to  meet  this  demand  of  the 
times  will  fail  of  a duty  and  an  opportunity. 

Fortunately,  the  step  is  not  a difficult  one.  Whether  it 
be  a college  of  arts  or  one  of  sciences,  the  resources  are 
already  at  hand  with  which  to  initiate  the  real  professional 
training  of  teachers  and  from  which  to  build  up  step  by  step 
(as  training  for  all  the  professions  has  been  tentatively 
evolved)  the  established  and  recognized  qualifications  of  the 
expert  teacher.  The  colleges  of  arts  have,  and  the  colleges 
of  science  should  have,  their  philosophical  and  historical 
faculties  so  organized  that  the  special  training  of  the  teacher 
in  those  directions  can  be  easily  begun  and  fully,  though  of 
course  slowly,  developed.  All  college  teaching  should  in 
these  days  be  so  firmly  based  upon  the  laboratory  principle 
that  the  establishment  of  new  research  laboratories  of 
psychology  and  new  practice  laboratories  of  methods  ought 
to  be  a matter  of  no  great  difficulty.  And,  aside  from  these 
purely  technical  facilities,  the  teacher,  were  he  recognized 
— as  too  often  he  is  not  — as  a serious  person  striving 
really  to  fit  himself  for  a lifelong  profession,  should  have 
no  difficulty  in  gaining  from  any  good  college,  whether  he 
pursue  the  older  courses  of  the  classics  or  the  newer  re- 
searches of  the  sciences,  that  breadth,  poise,  and  sanity  of 
mind  without  which  an  educator,  though  he  be  skilled  in 
all  the  devices  of  pedagogics  and  intricacies'  of  methods, 
is  not  fit  to  have  charge  of  any  boy  or  girl. 

Every  year  shows  increasing  dissatisfaction  with  the  re- 
ults  of  the  public  schools,  not  because  those  schools  are 
deteriorating, — on  the  contrary,  they  are  almost  everywhere 
improving, — but  because  every  year  there  is  more  general 


12 


appreciation  of  the  fact  that  genuine  public  education  im- 
plies something  more  and  better  than  a mere  routine  of 
lessons.  To  this  discontent  are  due  that  restless  experi- 
menting upon  the  schools,  that  loud  demand  for  reforms 
in  school  government  and  for  changes  in  school  methods, 
and  that  ceaseless  arguing  over  “ content,”  “ correlation,” 
and  a hundred  other  shibboleths  of  teaching,  which  seem 
sometimes  to  have  converted  the  common  schools  into 
mere  battle-grounds  for  theorists. 

None  of  these  earnestly  striven  for  reforms,  however, 
will  be  permanent  in  its  effects  until  it  is  recognized  by  the 
public,  by  the  normal  schools,  by  the  colleges,  and  by  the 
teachers  themselves,  that  education,  especially  in  the  case 
of  children,  is  almost  wholly  a question  of  personal  rela- 
tions; that  it  is  the  teachers,  much  more  than  their  methods, 
which  make  or  mar  the  school.  The  most  perfect  organi- 
zation and  most  ideal  curriculum,  in  the  hands  of  ignorant, 
narrow,  or  indifferent  instructors,  will  become  not  far  from 
valueless.  The  most  meagre  resources,  on  the  contrary, 
will  perform  a wonderful  work  of  education  if  wielded  by 
broad-minded,  well-taught  men  and  women  who  have  the 
teaching  zeal. 

A well-trained  teacher  ought,  of  course,  to  be  familiar 
with  pedagogic  methods ; but  he  should  be  their  master,  not 
their  slave.  Details  of  organization,  method,  discipline, 
curriculum,  should  be  to  him  simply  a means  of  education, 
not  an  end.  Yet  these  things  — method,  organization, 
curriculum  — 1 loom  largest  in  the  training  of  the  average 
teacher ; and  by  his  skill  in  handling  these  tools  of  teaching, 
not  by  his  power  as  a moulder  of  men,  the  schoolmaster  is 
too  often  judged.  It  is  quite  generally  agreed  that  the 
chief  function  of  the  college  and  the  university  is  to  give 
men  larger  views  of  life,  greater  command  of  themselves. 


higher  motives  of  conduct.  None  needs  this  wider  out- 
look, this  self-command,  this  ethical  motive,  more  than  he 
who  is  to  develop  the  minds  and  characters  of  children. 
To  neglect,  therefore,  to  reach  in  the  fullest  possible  de- 
gree this  great  body  of  teachers  is  for  the  college  to  lose  its 
finest  opportunity. 

Because  the  teacher  needs  and  the  college  can  give 
breadth,  outlook,  the  fundamentals  of  larger  life  and  activ- 
ity, those  higher  institutions  should  not,  in  laying  out  their 
courses  for  the  professional  training  of  the  teacher,  address 
themselves  too  minutely  to  questions  of  method  and  details 
of  curriculum.  They  will  be  at  fault,  too,  if,  because  of 
their  new  interest  in  elementary  and  secondary  education, 
they  attempt  to  look  too  closely  into  the  workings  of  public 
school  teaching  and  to  influence  too  directly  the  develop- 
ment of  methods  and  curricula  therein.  Those  are  ques- 
tions to  be  solved  by  school-teachers,  not  by  college  pro- 
fessors. And  the  heaviest  and  most  harmful  pressure 
which  the  college  can  put  upon  those  who  are  working  out 
those  problems  is  practically  to  dictate  what  shall  be  taught 
in  the  preparatory  schools  by  prescribing  fixed  requirements 
for  entrance.  One  of  the  best  results  of  a fuller  awakening 
of  the  colleges  to  their  duty  in  the  matter  of  training 
teachers  will  be  a simultaneous  arousing  of  them  to  the  fact 
that  they  should  not  ask,  from  the  secondary  schools,  candi- 
dates drilled  and  redrilled  in  a certain  list  of  studies,  but 
that  they  should  demand  young  men  and  women  widely, 
variously,  it  may  be  diversely  instructed,  yet  with  their 
individuality  developed,  with  their  wills  trained,  with  their 
minds  broadened,  and  with  their  characters  established. 

To  secure  such  candidates  for  admission  to  their  courses, 
the  colleges  must  educate  those  who  are  to  teach  those  can- 
didates. What  waste  of  time  in  college  work,  what  loss  of 


H 

effectiveness,  what  stunting  of  results,  come  from  the  need- 
less immaturity,  the  feeble  will  power,  the  dulness  due  to 
ill  preparation  of  a large  proportion  of  the  young  men  who 
enter,  only  those  who  have  to  do  with  colleges  can  conceive 
or  measure.  The  remedy,  however,  lies  almost  wholly  with 
the  colleges  themselves.  It  is  for  them  actively  and  imme- 
diately to  concern  themselves  with  the  character  and  the 
education  of  the  men  and  the  women  who  train  those 
college  Freshmen  ; it  is  for  them  to  begin  at  the  beginning 
by  training  those  who,  in  the  elementary  and  secondary 
schools,  lay  the  foundations  for  the  educational  work  that 
the  college  has  to  do,  and  who,  far  more  than  this,  establish 
the  principal  foundations  of  the  social  and  political  state. 

To  effect  this,  the  colleges,  whether  of  arts  or  of  sciences, 
ought  first  to  establish  a recognized  profession  of  teaching 
upon  the  same  high  and  exacting  plane  as  that  of  the  other 
learned  professions  ; second,  to  offer  every  wise  inducement 
for  intending  teachers  to  pursue  to  the  end  these  profes- 
sional courses  ; third,  to  give  honor  and  preference  to  those 
who  have  so  recognized  the  dignity  of  teaching  as  really  to 
fit  themselves  to  be  teachers.  And,  finally,  those  colleges 
should  modify  the  conditions  of  admission  to  their  Fresh- 
man classes  so  that  it  may  be  easy  for  one,  otherwise  well 
qualified,  to  come  in  though  he  have  not  stuffed  himself 
with  past  examination  papers ; but  so  that  it  may  not  be 
easy  for  any  youth  to  enter  unless  he  has  been  truly  edu- 
cated by  professional  teachers, — by  teachers,  that  is,  who 
have  known  how  to  train  his  mind  and  body,  how  to 
broaden  his  views,  how  to  strengthen  and  dignify  his 
character. 

James  P.  Munroe. 


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